The chief judge for the Pentagon's Military Commissions has bowed to a White House request and postponed until late September a war court hearing at Guantánamo Bay for a Saudi man accused of aiding al Qaeda, according to a document obtained by The Miami Herald.

The judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, ruled Tuesday that the four-month delay in a pre-trial hearing for Ahmed Darbi would ''serve the interests of justice'' because of ongoing reviews of detainee policies and prosecutions by the Obama administration.

The hearing for Darbi, which had been scheduled for May 27, was to be the first of the new administration at an abandoned airstrip called Camp Justice.

Then last week the White House announced plans to revive the stalled trials, but only after consultation with Congress to develop new guidelines that, they said, would give war court accused more protections.

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama had echoed international and law of war experts' criticisms that the commissions created by the Bush administration were light on ``due process.''

Three men have been convicted in the old system, including Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Hamdan, who got a short sentence and was freed to his native Yemen last year.

Another, Australian David Hicks, has been likewise freed and the third man, Ali Hamza al Bahlul, a Yemeni propagandist, is serving a life prison term, currently at Guantánamo.

More than a dozen war court cases were in the pipeline when President Obama sought and won the original freeze in commissions hearings.

''Granting the continuance will serve the interests of justice because it will permit the administration time to implement changes, complete the Detention Policy Review, and finish its review of individual cases,'' Pohl wrote in the two-page ruling dated Tuesday.

Pohl set a Sept. 24 hearing date, and said that should give the new administration "reasonable time to accomplish these actions.''

''The best interests of both the public and of the accused in a prompt trial will be not harmed by the requested delay of the next hearing,'' he added.

Darbi, 34, is accused of plotting a never-realized attack on an unnamed ship in the Strait of Hormuz. He also allegedly met bin Laden and trained at an al Qaeda camp.

Conviction as an al Qaeda conspirator could bring life imprisonment. He has been identified as the brother-in-law of one of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers.

Defense lawyers had planned to argue next week before the judge that two documentaries on U.S. detention practices should be shown to any military jury that hears the Darbi case.

The Saudi's lawyers argue that the father of two, whose family is in Yemen, was tortured by sadistic guards during his detention at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. They claim that the government case is built on up to 119 self-incriminating statements, which would not be admissible in a U.S. civilian court.

Pohl, who has presided at Army courts-martial of several guards in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, became chief judge for Military Commissions on Dec. 15.

His delay means the next war court hearing on the court docket is scheduled for June 1 in the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier near Khost, Afghanistan, in July 2002. A different military judge, Army Col. Patrick Parrish, is hearing that case and has yet to rule on a similar government request to delay.

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